2. Contents
Key Take-Away 2
The Challenge:
A Senior Executive’s Question 3
The Solution:
Google Apps –
Top Three Customer Realized Benefits
#1 – Global Teamwork with Internal and
External Parties 7
#2 – Mobile Applications as a Primary Global
Teamwork, Communications and
Productivity Enhancer 12
#3 – Google Apps Helps Liberate Your IT
Resources While Also Reducing
IT Costs 18
Wrap-Up and Next Steps 21
Followup 21
Cited Sources 22
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 1
3. According to our customers around the world,
Google Apps delivers three key differentiators:
• Real-time, in-document global teamwork for internal and external
collaborators/innovators
• Mobile support for Google Apps on all four major mobile operating
system platforms — thus, making your workforce more productive any time,
any place, with any device
• Liberate your human resources for higher value-added, more strategic
activities while also substantially reducing your IT costs (Google Apps is only
US$50 per user per year)
Bottom line, the true differentiator for Google Apps is that no other product in today’s
marketplace can offer an easy-to-use, real-time, scalable, secure, cloud-based messaging/
global teamwork/innovation/mobility productivity/organizational transformation platform
for the five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) that Google Apps provides.
2 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
4. A Senior Executive’s Question
Recently, a CIO asked us:
“What are the real benefits delivered by Google Apps for your customers?
A competitor of Google’s was just in here yesterday, claiming that your
Google Apps are no better than on-premise messaging systems.
Can you convince me otherwise?”
Based on these and similar questions from prospects all over the world, we have been
working with 100 Google Apps customers (out of our four million Enterprise Google Apps
customers) to determine, in their words/experience, what is Google Apps’ value proposi-
tion over on-premise messaging, collaboration and mobility systems (see Exhibit 1 for a list
of the components of Google Apps).
These 100 Google Apps customers are
in nine industries; from eight countries;
have twenty users to over one million
users (active users per domain) live/in-
production on Google Apps; have an-
nual revenues from US$2 million to
US$40 billion; and are achieving hard-
money savings/benefits with Google
Apps combined with improved business
processes of US$7,500 to over US$3
million per year.
Exhibit 1: What Is Included In Google Apps
Exhibit 2 outlines what our customers have told us: Google Apps provides a dramatically
lower total cost of ownership (typically 20-60% lower for messaging, global teamwork,
innovation, mobility, faster decision-making, organizational transformation and acquisition
integration solutions) as well as both a higher and faster return-on-investment (typically
10% to 40% higher and 20% to 50% faster) vs. on-premise messaging, collaboration and
mobility systems.
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 3
5. Cost / Value Category Cost / Value Detailed Line Item Google Apps On-Premise Software
Exhibit 2: Google Apps’ Lower Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO) and Higher and Faster Return-on-
Investment (ROI) vs. On-Premise Messaging, Collaboration and Mobility Systems
4 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
6. According to our Google Apps customers, the most valuable
points of differentiation provided by Google Apps over on-
premise messaging, collaboration and mobility systems are:
• The much lower licensing, hardware, infrastructure, training and staffing requirements
as well as costs of Google Apps
• The constant innovation and automatic updates made in Google Apps – for example,
over 120 total enhancements were automatically rolled out in Google Apps in a weekly
manner in 2010 and then again in 2011
• The excellent uptime/availability of Google Apps (99.9% uptime SLA and no planned
downtime)
• The faster time-to-market that Google Apps delivers (both in terms of actually getting Google
Apps up and running in their organizations and acquired firms as well as in terms of
improving the new product/service innovation processes within their organizations)
• The much quicker, more accurate and more profitable organization-wide decision
making and organizational transformations (technological, business process-wise and
strategic/cultural) -- and thus competitive advantages -- enabled by all of these Google
Apps differentiators/benefits
Next, we worked with these same 100
Google Apps customers and conducted
275 hours of external benchmark re-
search to determine the actual hard-
money savings and benefits that Google
Apps delivers for our customers. Based
on this analysis we have found twenty
such savings and benefits that Google
Apps delivers for our customers, which
we have categorized into five key value
areas of the Google Apps’ Compelling
Cloud Value (CCV) enterprise transfor-
mation framework (see Exhibit 3) :
Exhibit 3: Google Apps’ Compelling Cloud Value (CCV)
Enterprise Transformation Framework
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 5
7. Global Teamwork
Representative Savings:
• Make workers 5-25% more productive
• Reduce travel expenses by 5-18%
• Reduce recruiting and on-boarding costs by 10-35%
• Reduce training costs by 2-10%
• Reduce supply chain costs by 3-10%
• Reduce administrative, paper, postage and overnight shipping costs by 15-50%
Innovation
Representative Savings:
• Reduce new product/service development cycle time by 8-20%
• Reduce new product/service development and introduction costs by 4-11%
Mobility
Representative Savings:
• Enhanced mobility/productivity results in sales increases of 1-4% annually
• Enable the organization to do 5-10% more work with the same headcount as today
• Reduce mobility expenditures substantially by globally supporting all four major
mobile operating systems (Android, Apple iOS, RIM/BlackBerry and Microsoft
ActiveSync), providing superb mobility choice for employees (as our customers
say, Google Apps can be accessed “any time, any place, on any device”)
Acquisitions
Representative Savings:
• Reduce IT costs to on-board new employees from acquired firms by 10-35% –
while on-boarding them up to 25% faster
IT Cost Reduction and Environmental Stewardship
Representative Savings:
• Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by 20-60% for messaging, global teamwork,
innovation, mobility, faster decision-making, organizational transformation and
acquisition integration solutions
6 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
8. Special Note: This analysis is of the hard-money value provided by Google Apps alone.
If any of the other Google products are added to the equation – Google+, Google+ Pages
for Business, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Search Appliance, Google Commerce
Search, Google Chromebooks, Google App Engine, Google BigQuery Service, Google
AdWords, Google AdSense, Google Wallet, etc. - the organization’s value from Google
solutions increases even more.
We will provide an overview of the three most popular Google Apps’ savings/benefits from
our customers and benchmark research in the remainder of this Google Enterprise Value
Management (EVM) Perspectives Report. If you are interested in analyzing all twenty sav-
ings/benefits of the Google Apps’ Compelling Cloud Value (CCV) enterprise transformation
framework for your enterprise, educational institution or government organization, please
contact your Google Enterprise sales representative or click on “Contact sales” in the upper
right-hand corner of http://www.google.com/a.
#1 • Global Teamwork with Internal and External Parties
“What we bought with Google Apps originally was an email system
replacement. Now, two years and over 240 enhancements in the
Google Apps functionality later, we are realizing that the real-time
collaboration and innovation culture that Google Apps has enabled
us to achieve is as important as - if not more important - than the IT
cost reduction that we are achieving.”
Manesh Patel, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer,
Sanmina-SCI
There are a steady stream of senior business and IT executives (CEO’s, COO’s, CFO’s, CHRO’s,
CSO’s, CMO’s, CPO’s, CTO’s and CIO’s) who are constantly asking us to help their workforces
team better - that is, to be more collaborative, innovative and productive globally. As IT
Insider Online has recently said: “Real-time collaboration tools not only connect teams more
effectively, but also provide considerable cost savings to your organization. As a result IT
managers are increasingly recognizing the need for real-time collaboration among team mem-
bers - no matter their location. ... According to Ted Schadler of Forrester Research Inc., what’s
driving the need is the growing trend of distributed organizations, the rising number of remote
workers, and the upsurge of business-to-business teams.” 1
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 7
9. As a recognition of this powerful trend in the global marketplace, the Harvard Business
Review ran a spotlight on collaboration in its July/August 2011 edition. Among many nuggets
of collaborative insight, one article commented on the fact that “business people today are
working more collaboratively than ever before, not just inside companies but also with
suppliers, customers, governments, and universities. Global virtual teams are the norm,
not the exception.”2 And another team of collaborators finished their top-rate analysis of
building a collaborative organization based on trust and teamwork with the following sum-
mary: “Few would argue that today’s market imperative -- to innovate fast enough to keep
up with the competition and with customer needs while simultaneously improving cost and
efficiency -- can be met without the active engagement of employees in different functions
and at multiple levels of responsibility. To undertake that endeavor, businesses need a lot
more than minimal cooperation and mere compliance. They need everyone’s ideas on how
to do things better and more cheaply. They need true collaboration. … The organizations
that will become the household names of this century will be renowned for sustained, large-
scale, efficient innovation. The key to that capability is neither company loyalty nor free-
agent autonomy but, rather, a strong collaborative community.”3
Additional research by Aberdeen Group has also proven that organizations are indeed
achieving tangible benefits with real-time global teamwork. “A majority of Best-in-Class or-
ganizations measured the value of enterprise collaboration in terms of increased opera-
tional efficiencies, accelerated product development, improved sales capabilities and
increased lead generation (citing the following mean performance among Best-in-Class
enterprise collaborators: 24.5% increase in revenue in 2010; 104% ROI on a company’s
collaboration deployment; and taking only one hour to share critical information throughout
the enterprise).”4
Much like this research demonstrates, the global teamwork (specifically, collaboration,
innovation and productivity) benefits that our Google Apps customers are achieving are
truly remarkable. These benefits and competitive advantages are primarily driven by the
real-time, in-document (spreadsheets, documents and presentations) global teamwork
enabled by Google Apps both inside our customers’ organizations as well as externally with
their customers, suppliers, partners, acquired companies and other key stakeholders/col-
laborators/innovators -- for only US$50 per user per year.
8 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
10. Here are some of our customers’ testimonials
on the enhanced global teamwork that they are
achieving with Google Apps:
“We recently completed our global migration of 50,000 users
from our previous messaging/collaboration system to Google
Apps. This was one of the most straightforward migrations that we have ever done. The project
finished on schedule and on budget. Our users are happy to be on a new state-of-the-art plat-
form which is accessible from any device, anywhere, anytime -- and it helps them to be more
productive. Google Apps also has a significantly lower operating cost compared to our legacy
environment, so we are saving money at the same time. But, more importantly, the Google Cloud
is the ideal way to consolidate multiple local messaging environments and create one global
platform without worrying about technology infrastructure. We get the same great service levels
and performance for all of our locations globally. And, as a result, our collaboration capabilities
are supporting a whole new way of working together more effectively across brands, depart-
ments, countries and suppliers.”
Christine Atkins, Senior Vice President of Group Information Technology,
Royal Ahold N.V.
“Pratt Industries originally decided to go Google Apps partially as
an alternative to the current unstable email solution and also because
it was a lower-cost email solution. But as we have used Google Apps
more and more internally and with our customers and contractors, we
have come to realize that the collaboration benefits (both in terms of process and cultural im-
provements) are equally important to our growing company. Whether it has been for a plant
disaster-recovery strategy, circuit switchovers at more than 60 locations, new plant construction
planning and project management, and online/email customer communications, Google Apps is
enabling Pratt Industries to serve our customers more efficiently, track costs more easily and
monitor performance benchmarks more quickly and transparently. By providing all of these
tangible benefits, Google Apps enables us to spend less time on IT administration and hassles
and more time on our core business: paper, packaging, recycling and making our customers
very happy.”
Brian McPheely, Chief Executive Officer, and
Dennis Fleming, Chief Information Officer,
Pratt Industries (U.S.A.), Inc.
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 9
11. “Dynamic business innovation is an essential element of Baird & Warner's
DNA. Google Apps supports our focus on innovation by enhancing the
communication and collaboration amongst our over 2,000 sales associ-
ates, loan officers and array of support personnel -- particularly through Google's single platform,
integrated messaging and document solutions, and ultra-powerful search tools. By deploying
Google's products and services -- essentially leveraging Google's own focus on innovation -- we
enable our entire organization to focus on delivering high-touch, high-value customer service.”
Stephen Baird, President and Chief Executive Officer, and
Eric Bryn, Vice President of Digital Innovation,
Baird & Warner
“Imagination is a global agency that transforms business
through creativity - therefore we needed an updated
approach to help Imagination become more creative, more collaborative, more innovative and
more global. Switching to Google Apps has enabled Imagination to realize key business objectives,
such as letting us collaborate and distribute information in real-time, on a global basis, and
across disciplines. As a result Imagination has significantly increased the speed at which we
communicate internally, with current and future clients and with our suppliers. This has allowed
us to strengthen relationships, offer more value, and be more responsive to our clients’ needs.”
Simon King, EMEA Operations Director,
Imagination
10 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
12. “For MWV our adoption of cloud computing generates
competitive advantage, particularly in the way we communicate and collaborate. Using our
deployment of Google Apps, we can more quickly expand and contract the services needed to
support our enterprise. We can work more effectively across international borders, with tools that
are inherently adapted to the multi-lingual environment. We offer tools that allow our global
representatives to collaborate quickly and without special configuration or technical staff
intervention. Cloud computing for MWV comes down to one thing: enabling profitable growth.”
E. Mark Rajkowski, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer,
Mark V. Gulling, President of Global Business Services and Chief Information Officer,
and Andrew Stanley, Vice President of Global Infrastructure Delivery Services,
MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV)
“There are three key benefits that the Ray White Group
achieves with Google Apps:
• IT staff productivity: Because Google now manages the configuration, integration, administra-
tion, support, security, backup/disaster recovery and continuous improvement of our messaging
and collaboration solutions, we have realigned many of our IT staff to support value-adding
revenue-generating or cost-reducing projects.
• Power-user leadership: Rather than typical IT project rollout and training, we have used
the key power business users to lead the adoption of Google’s messaging and collaboration
technologies -- which has resulted in highly productive users in quicker time frames as well as
better alignment of both IT and business resources.
• Collaborative Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) execution: Initially we liked Google Apps
because Gmail worked well on any smartphone or tablet, but now with one year of real-world
experience utilizing Google Apps, we realize that Google Apps provides excellent, game-changing
collaboration and innovation capabilities in addition to messaging on any of our associates’
office PC’s or mobile devices.
“We are very happy with our choice of Google primarily because Google is a business partner that
best reflects our own values in successful collaboration, innovation and results-orientation.”
Brian White, Chairman of the Board, and
Ben White, Head of Property Management and Chief Information Officer,
Ray White Group
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 11
13. #2 • Mobile Applications as a Primary Global Teamwork,
Communications and Productivity Enhancer
“Google Apps' platform flexibility has helped us support
broad mobile access for our colleagues. Providing a Google
Apps account to every employee has enabled Delta Hotels
and Resorts to provide our staff with access to critical data
on Apple iPhones, Android-based smartphones and other
devices. For instance our Front Desk staff can now remotely
check on hotel occupancy levels and manage their schedules from anywhere, at any time. Our
core age demographic is late 20s to early 30s. These individuals don't want to be restricted by
cumbersome workplace technology. Overall, the openness of the Google Apps' mobile platform
has allowed us to better engage our colleagues, improve loyalty and reduce turnover.”
Michael Rodger, Director of Digital Innovation,
Delta Hotels and Resorts
We have all seen first-hand through using smartphones, tablets and Chromebooks; from
the research that smartphone shipments are starting to overtake PC shipments; from the
large number of companies, government agencies and educational institutions now imple-
menting Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) strategies/policies; and from the phenomenal
sales growth of everything mobile (device suppliers, telcos offering mobile services, mobile
operating systems and applications/content being provided for mobile devices, etc.) that
the mobility market is red-hot.
And, for good reason: as we talk with more customers and prospects, the use cases continue
to increase for improved real-time collaboration and communications on mobile devices.
Executives, salespeople, marketing gurus, customer-facing professionals, field technicians,
operations/manufacturing professionals, supply chain and procurement professionals,
distribution/logistics professionals, legal professionals, R&D/innovation specialists, support
professionals, etc. need to manage their important activities, anytime, anywhere, on any
device (no longer tied/tethered to their offices or homes):
12 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
14. Stakeholder Communications/Collaborations/Innovations
• Access/review/update customer, supplier or partner contracts
• Access/review/update current or prior correspondence/documents/sites with
customers, prospects, suppliers, partners, etc.
• Create/access/share new and/or relevant videos with customers, prospects,
suppliers, partners, etc.
• Access/review/update order status, invoice status, customer data, supplier data,
partner data, new product/service innovation data, and other critical business data
Productivity Enhancers
• Search for product and pricing information (on her/his company’s public website
and/or intranet), competitor information or partner information
• Access/review/update pitch decks, executive presentations, account plans, brand
plans, new product/service specs, category plans, RFI’s/RFP’s, marketing documents,
HR documents, supply chain plans, budgets, etc.
• Access/review/update business intelligence/analytics on any topic within their
organization (executive dashboards, sales, marketing, operations, partnerships, etc.)
• Access/review/utilize location-based services for a variety of business/organizational
purposes (e.g., location-based mobile advertising; obtaining restaurant, store, ATM,
social event, parking space, etc. recommendations based on current location; ob-
taining address and/or person-based location/directions; visual identification using
Internet mapping/earth solutions to locate/see a specific monument, building, house,
road, structure, etc.; obtaining timely alert notifications pertaining to key employees,
customers, partners, suppliers, opportunities, issues, etc. based on your current
location; business or organizational asset location identification and recovery; etc.)
• Access/review/update information on fellow co-workers or external collaborators --
contact information, shared documents/sites, biographical information, meeting or
call notes, business networking and synchronization, etc.
Important Daily Tasks
• Conduct calls, instant-message (IM) chats and videochats at all times of the day, with
business associates (inside and outside their organizations) worldwide
• Manage email, manage calendars/scheduling, manage text messages, update contacts,
obtain weather forecasts, obtain key news or stock information, obtain timely flight/train/
transport alerts or information, capture important still pictures, utilize the calculator, etc.
• Access/review/update social networking sites
• Obtain any information that they need on the public WWW Internet
And they need this information in seconds or minutes, not hours or days.
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 13
15. Deloitte Consulting’s research and customer experience has demonstrated that “companies
are already rethinking business processes and enabling new business models that would
not have been possible without mobile technology. Evolutions in location-based services,
social networks, mobile payment processing, low-cost device add-ons and integration with
enterprise systems has led to the potential for employees, customers and suppliers to con-
sume and produce sophisticated information, goods and services from anywhere.”5
Andrew McAfee from MIT’s Center for Digital Business recently elaborated on the positive
impact that mobile cloud solutions are having in the business world: “Technology has finally
caught up with workers who don’t sit at the same desk all day, every day. We now have lap-
tops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones, and a lot of us (most of us?) use them pretty
heavily because we’re mobile -- we move around during the workday and hit the road on
business trips. Thanks to the cloud, our data, documents, applications, communications,
and social networks can come along with us, and be available almost no matter where we
are. Without the cloud, mobility and the proliferation of devices would inevitably lead to se-
vere fragmentation (‘where did I put that document?’) and frustration. With the cloud, we
can be productive virtually everywhere.”6
And as McKinsey recently stated, “CEOs must take a big-picture approach to the collective
implications of Web-centricity, the way it redefines a company’s interactions with employees
and customers, and the challenges and opportunities it presents. … CIOs should, for exam-
ple, prepare for the day when consumers, employees, and suppliers all communicate and
interact through the use of mobile devices that run Web applications. This phenomenon
will not only extend the reach of the enterprise but also place a premium on analytics and
possibly improve the competitiveness of companies that can exploit the new information
and interactions a Web-centric environment provides.”7
14 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
16. If you listen to our customers, though, the time for C-level executives
to take the reigns of their mobile strategy is now — especially with
how Google’s solutions can enable and enhance their organization’s
mobile capabilities to increase business and IT value:
“Google Apps … what a game changer. We have seen dramatic
improvements in the way our photographers and writers
collaborate regardless of location (in the office and in the field). After more than a 100 years of
perfecting how we develop pictorial stories, Google Apps has made what we once dreamed
about, part of what we actually do every day now. Don’t take my word for it - see what one of
our photographers has to say:
“In planning and executing the photography for our stories, I find the collaborative and mobile
tools in Google Apps to be indispensable. Every feature in National Geographic is the result of
careful editorial decisions to present the best photography for our readers. As the story coverage
plan begins to take shape, my photo editor, writer and I use Google Docs to keep track of the who,
what, where, when and how we are going to execute our coverage. This is a constantly evolving
single document that we can all update in real-time from any location in the world, with any
device (laptop, notebook or desktop computer, smartphone or tablet). Gone are the days of
emailing around the latest version of a coverage plan document only to have everyone ‘add a little
something,’ creating a headache for all of us. Google Docs has made this inefficient circle of
version confusion disappear forever.”
Christopher Liedel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and
Mark Thiessen, Staff Photographer,
National Geographic Society
“Jaguar Land Rover has been a Google Apps
customer since 2009. Since the move we
have been able to enable our workforce to take advantage of the ubiquitous mobility that Google
provides. Our employees can now collaborate, innovate, and generally be more productive using
a device that is convenient/appropriate for them anywhere in the world -- whether that be a PC
or Mac laptop, tablet or smartphone. This has enabled our executives to keep up-to-date with
critical data and information feeds on their iPads in real-time, enabling us to increase the speed
and effectiveness of our decision-making.”
Jeremy Vincent, Chief Information Officer,
Jaguar Land Rover
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 15
17. “26,000 of us at SOFTBANK TELECOM Corp., SOFTBANK
MOBILE Corp. and SOFTBANK BB Corp. have gone live on Google Apps this year, and it has delivered
a strong improvement in our collaboration and productivity. One of the biggest benefits has been
that our employees can share information/knowledge and collaborate on key deliverables in real-
time, from any of their devices - PC’s and laptops in the office as well as smartphones and tablets
in the field. We are very proud of the agility realized by our employees as well as external collab-
orators with our smart mobile devices and Google Apps. With ‘Mobile Internet + Google Apps,’
we are achieving increased productivity and margins without an increase in sales headcount.”
Ken Miyauchi, Chief Operating Officer,
SOFTBANK TELECOM Corporation
“As a supplier to the mobile industry, we at Fairchild Semicon-
ductor are active users of mobile technologies (smartphones
and tablets) to be more productive, collaborative, innovative - and to serve our customers faster
and better. With Google Apps the most impressive value that we have benefited from is the ubiq-
uitous access to information, documents, sites, videochats, etc. by any of our professionals, any
time, any place, with any device - from engineers, product line managers and salespeople to our
executive team. This is vital to us because it enables us to communicate and collaborate with
each other and with customers, design firms, and other key partners to get work done and
achieve key business results for all of us, more effectively and efficiently. By working closely
with Google Apps and other key cloud providers in what we call our ‘Fairchild Semiconductor
Innovation Network,’ we are not only saving US$500,000 a year in reduced costs but we are also
achieving competitive advantages that are making us and our key innovation partners more
flexible, proactive and successful.”
Mark Thompson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and
Paul Lones, Senior Vice President of Information Technology,
Fairchild Semiconductor
16 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
18. "Since the conversion to Google Apps, we have realized
unplanned savings in remote access to both email and
documents. Many employees are reporting increased flexibility in accessing work documents
while out of the office. Others are now able to use non-Windows home PC's as well as a variety
of smartphones and tablets to keep up-to-date with email, to collaborate on documents and to
participate in project-related websites in real-time. The end-results: much higher productivity
for office and mobile workers (e.g., finance/accounting, marketing, account management, prop-
erty management, HR, etc.) that deliver expected annual savings of approximately half-a-million
dollars."
Scot Adams, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer,
Cadillac Fairview
"We believe that the cloud is not just another buzzword, but is definitely
where the future of productivity lives. Outfitting our users with messaging and collaboration
solutions that work in a web browser means there is less need to install, update and manage local
applications. It also gives our users extra flexibility to take their work away from their desks onto
mobile phones, tablets and other mobile gadgets. From improved health and safety standards
with the adoption of smaller and lighter mobile devices to a new generation of highly efficient
mobile EAT. managers where the access to our collaboration space is now at the convenience of
a table in the nearest coffee shop -- the direct and indirect benefits of Google Apps keep piling up."
Rene Batsford, Chief Information Officer, and
Cesar Ramanauskas, Systems Manager,
EAT.
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 17
19. #3 • Google Apps Helps Liberate Your IT Resources
While Also Reducing IT Costs
“A move to the cloud allows IT to transform the way it works.
On-demand tools such as Google Apps reduce the time and
resources it takes IT to deliver capabilities, allowing our teams to focus on the effective use of
technology. Cloud computing is a great example of how to shift the focus from running IT to
maximizing a solution’s effectiveness. Enabling our IT teams to spend more time with our busi-
nesses to make the improvements that our customers truly care about is why we made the
move to Google Apps.”
Bentley N. Curran, Chief Information Officer and
Vice President of Information Technology,
Brady Corporation
While it goes without saying that most enterprises, educational institutions and governmental
agencies approach us initially for Google Apps messaging or collaboration cloud solutions in
order to cut costs, the true differentiator for Google Apps is that no other product in
today’s marketplace can offer an easy-to-use, real-time, scalable, secure, cloud-
based messaging/global teamwork/innovation/mobility productivity/organiza-
tional transformation platform for the five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) that
Google Apps provides.
And by having Google manage the servers, storage, backup/disaster recovery, support, and
some networking and facility management for the organization’s messaging, global teamwork,
innovation, mobility, faster decision-making, organizational transformation and acquisition
integration solutions, many Google Apps customers are reporting that anywhere from 0.5%
to 5% of their IT professionals and sometimes also some business professionals are being
freed-up from day-to-day IT/spreadsheet/document/workflow/infrastructure/manual-updates
busy-work to help with truly critical, strategic and value-added business activities.
The cost savings from Google Apps are real and impactful … today.
As The Boston Consulting Group asserted in late 2010: “Cloud com-
puting has a definite role at large organizations. Today, both companies
and governments are realizing sizable gains in cost and efficiency from the
cloud. … GlaxoSmithKline, The Coca-Cola Company, Valeo and the City of
Los Angeles have used cloud-based messaging, collaboration and workflow
to lower costs by 10% to 30%.”8 (Author’s Note: Valeo and the City of Los
Angeles are Google Apps customers.)
18 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
20. There are many Google Apps customers around the
world that have obtained these human-resource
productivity benefits and IT cost savings:
“In deciding to move to Google Apps, speed of innovation was a big
factor. Google Apps constantly provides new products and features with a great level of service
and reliability. Google Apps also allows us to decrease our total cost of ownership while diverting
our IT professionals from repetitive maintenance tasks to more business-centric work that adds
value to our business.”
Atsushi Yazawa, Chief Information Officer,
Casio Computer Company, Ltd.
“Switching to Google Apps provided us with a way to
significantly improve the level of service provided to our students and alumni. Building the infra-
structure to provide a similar level of service on campus would have required an investment of
US$1.5 million and increased the complexity of our infrastructure.”
Ron Kraemer, Vice President for Information Technologies
and Chief Information Officer,
University of Notre Dame
“Our own transition to the cloud will save millions in taxpayer dollars annually. We expect that
using a cloud-based system will reduce email operation costs by 50 percent over the next five
years and save more than US$15.2 million for the agency in that time. A large part of these sav-
ings will come from a decrease in the number of costly data centers requiring hardware, software
licenses, maintenance, and contractor support. In addition to the cost saving benefits, the new email
environment provides our agency with an easily accessible suite of services including email and col-
laboration tools that help GSA employees become a more mobile and more efficient workforce.” 9
Martha Johnson, U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 19
21. “The switch from Lotus Notes to Google Apps for Business gives
BI-LO more for less. In addition to the 60% total e-mail cost reduction,
the new Google solution makes obsolete the hundreds of analog tapes used for e-mail backup,
reducing storage and power costs by 10%. Google’s service also allows BI-LO teammates to
collaborate on projects electronically, eliminating the need to print multiple copies of a single
document and greatly reducing paper waste. As with all of BI-LO’s cost savings efforts, these
savings will be passed on to customers.” 10
Carol DeWitt, Vice President and Chief Information Officer,
BI-LO
“In 2009 we decided to upgrade our messaging and collabora-
tion systems with the objective of providing better email search
capabilities, improving mobile access to email and documents,
enabling easier global collaboration and lowering IT costs (especially for applications, servers
and storage). After evaluating Google Apps, Microsoft and IBM Lotus solutions, we chose Google
Apps. Today our end users have realized the productivity improvements that we were expecting
and our end users can access their email and documents anywhere at anytime from any device
(desktop PC’s, laptops, notebooks, smartphones and tablets), which has improved our capability
to collaborate globally. Our IT workload to support collaboration has been significantly reduced
and we are benefiting from the constant stream of innovation from Google. We have improved
our end-user experience while reducing our overall costs for email and collaboration by 60% and
eliminating approximately 50% of our VPN costs.”
Jay McLean, Chief Information Officer,
Nexteer Automotive
“Significant savings to date have been derived from a combination of outsourcing,
alternative staffing, and streamlined workflows and process benefits. Based on
streamlined collaboration and smoother internal processes, firm staff have
been able to produce work product in a fraction of the time and work with
clients on edits and changes in real-time. In terms of return on investment, in
licensing alone we are realizing cost savings of 10:1 based on Google's annual subscription/per
user pricing model compared with steeper traditional licensing fees for client/server and even
web-based law practice management software.” 11
Tom Bradford, Senior and Founding Partner,
Don Barthel, Senior and Founding Partner, and
Eric Hunter, Director of Knowledge Management and Technology,
Bradford & Barthel, LLP
20 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
22. Wrap-Up and Next Steps
As the customer testimonials throughout this Google Enterprise Value Management
Perspectives Report illustrate, Google Apps combined with improved business processes
deliver the following real, compelling benefits to organizations of all sizes today (what we call
the “Google Apps’ Seven S’s of Value” for customers):
• Success
• Speed
• Simplicity
• Scalability
• Synchronization
• Security
• Savings
If you are interested in analyzing the value that Google’s cloud solutions can provide for your
enterprise, educational institution or government organization, please contact your Google
Enterprise sales representative or click on “Contact sales” in the upper right-hand corner of
http://www.google.com/a. We at Google look forward to working and winning with you.
Followup:
If you have any questions and/or feedback on this report, would like more information, would
like to team on a speaking opportunity, etc., please contact the author: Sean Monahan,
Google Enterprise, Mountain View, CA, smonahan@google.com.
Google EVM Perspectives Report | 21
23. Cited Sources:
1
Courtney Macavinta, “The Drive for Real-Time Collaboration,” IT Insider Online, March 2011.
Available at this URL:
http://www.itinsideronline.com/worldnowweb/Emerging/realtime_collaboration/index.
html?target=real%20time%20collaboration
2
Herminia Ibarra and Morten T. Hansen, “Are You a Collaborative Leader? How Great CEOs
Keep Their Teams Connected,” Harvard Business Review, July/August 2011, p. 70.
Available at this URL (with subscription):
http://hbr.org/2011/07/are-you-a-collaborative-leader/ar/1
3
Paul Adler, Charles Heckscher and Laurence Prusak, “Building a Collaborative Enterprise:
Four Keys to Creating a Culture of Trust and Teamwork,” Harvard Business Review,
July/August 2011, p. 101.
Available at this URL (with subscription):
http://hbr.org/2011/07/building-a-collaborative-enterprise/ar/1
4
Hyoun Park/Aberdeen Group, “5 Reasons Organizations Require Real-Time Collaboration,”
CMSWire, 15 March 2011.
Available at this URL:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-collaboration/5-reasons-organizations-require-
real-time-collaboration-010523.php
5
David Smud, “Applied Mobility,” Deloitte Consulting, 2011.
Available at this URL:
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/DcomUnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/us_
consulting_TT_chapter9_05062011.pdf
6
Andrew McAfee/MIT’s Center for Digital Business, “What Else Every CEO Needs to Know
About the Cloud,” Harvard Business Review Blog, 24 October 2011.
Available at this URL:
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2011/10/what-else-every-ceo-needs-to-k.html
22 | Google EVM Perspectives Report
